


Keeper of the Craft

by oceansinmychest



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gardens & Gardening, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Metaphors, Obsession, One Shot, Purple Prose, Roses, Season/Series 04, power magic power magic: the autobiography by shadow weaver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansinmychest/pseuds/oceansinmychest
Summary: Shadow Weaver tends to the garden in the courtyard.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Keeper of the Craft

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this while listening to Mother Mother’s “Little Pistol.” I find Shadow Weaver to be a fascinating character, but I acknowledge that she’s done horrendous things and is a terrible person. I neither condone nor support Shadow Weaver’s actions.

“And now, I want brimstone in my garden.  
I want roses set on fire. And I, well, I want what's best for me  
And I, I think I know just what that means.”

 _Little Pistol_ – Mother Mother

Even while held captive, Shadow Weaver appears ethereal and otherworldly. She glides across hallowed ground. Given a spare room as a prisoner in Queen Angella’s palace; history, shared yet disjointed, is not lost upon her. She serves her sentence. Confession won’t rob her dying breath. No longer worthy of Hordak Prime’s potential, she belongs nowhere.

Princess - _Queen_ \- Glimmer attempts to fill her mother’s shadow, her father’s hole, in leaps and strides. She watches the girl struggle to become a woman, to grow. All she needs is a proper mentor; Shadow Weaver vows to slip poison cloaked as counsel into Glimmer’s ear. Even now, Shadow Weaver treats Micah’s and Angella’s domain as her own warped palace of curiosities. She luxuriates. Takes her time examining and scrutinizing every plant between dainty, little sips of tea.

In the garden of falsified Eden, this sliver of cultivated paradise, she finds herself at peace. Rows and beds of flowers in various stages of growth await nurturing. Tethered to the secular today, she experiences the vigor of spring. A garden represents a haven not meant to be sheltered, but groomed for glory and harnessing untapped potential. 

Rich soil spills through her spread fingers. Clumps fall through alongside a pebble or two. She detects no traces of frost and instead digs a hole to plant a bulb or two. The spade dives in with a gracious twist of her wrist. She makes her moves with stabbing accuracy. Although she is capable of great destruction, she has a tenacity for bringing things to life. Devoid of the immaculate image of Earth Mother, the empress toils, still alive and granting council. Bestowed with an archaic wisdom, she has woven countless illusions. Fed her pawns twisted half-truths to serve her master plan.

As a lonely sorceress who lost her way, she prefers to keep herself busy. In isolation, she learns to enjoy her own company. With her magic squandered, she tends to her garden. Relishes the silence. On a small stone table, a dash of ginger root accentuates her morning tea. Once steaming, the mug now cools. In perfect solitude, Shadow Weaver has time to reflect.

She’ll have the Princess and perhaps eat her, too, as is the case for old tales. Glimmer looks to her for an infernal spirit’s knowledge. Would Queen Angella have offered such a desperate, hungry look?

For so long, she has loomed under the pretense of the pitch-black night. All cruel edges and sharp angles, her hair flows down her proud back. Tendrils of darkness fall flat. Her poignant mask holds all the scars and bares her past as Light Spinner. Yet, her gowns of ruby, shades of red, coax visions of gore and slaughter (as was the Horde’s way: to conquer, to claim, to maim).

Divorced from her omniscient abilities, malaise and a sense of failure cramp her stomach. Despite inner conflict, she carries herself well. Resumes an even stride and saunters across the courtyard. Stands too tall for a woman of her stature. Her turmoil is swallowed, buried even. So very few understand her visionary quest. 

Imprisoned for her beliefs as much as she is imprisoned by them, she is reduced to the caricature of an old, powerless woman. From esteemed sorceress to lowly prisoner, this routine marks a part of her new ritual. They brand her a traitor, but they will never understand. Never see the vision that Shadow Weaver sees.

By tending to this fledgling nursery, she paints a portrait of her glory. Mid-air, her wrist hangs limply. She poses for a portrait never to be painted. Nearby, the wisteria tree sags, encumbered by the weight of this chaotic world. No rot infiltrates her garden; it’s only the moral kind that taints what grows. Fussing over the flower bed of pink gladioli, she reaches a state of calm.

Shadow Weaver derives amusement from hollow pleasure. A pair of pruning shears take care of wilted leaves. Snip, _snip_. With vigor, she disposes of what promises to die – vines, leaves, and buds take a mighty plummet. She waters a particularly dry patch of dirt, reminiscent of all that her empire has been reduced to.

A deep, throaty chuckle revels in petty triumph. Her arms bend to form a pair of wings behind her back to depict a twisted projection of light and shadow.

Despite her imprisoned status, she conducts herself with graceful poise. She stands straight, her shadow lean and mean, stretching across her enclosure. The mask hides most, if not all. Old wounds ache, brimming with reminders of failure, of treason, of power lost. Her scars throb from the promise of a phantom pain. A pronounced, firm jaw spasms alongside her high set cheeks. With every hack, every wheeze, every splutter, Shadow Weaver oozes corruption and wilts herself. Hordak offered her a means to harness and control untapped potential. Betrayed for past betrayal, so little magic flows through her now.

Her veins no longer sing with electric fire.

Perhaps she’s cross to atone for her faults and leniency with Micah. Looking after her best interests, she raised - _trained_ \- Adora. Sharpened her into the ethereal weapon she is today. Does she ever miss the ways of Light Spinner? Has she never delivered as a faux saint?

Sweet hubris unravels her ambitious edifice. She hides the multitude of fears depicting a weed-like growth. She has done horrible things out of necessity or so she convinces herself. What is hers is no longer so. She lost it all. The mort of broken shards taunt and haunt her.

Perhaps there’s a sliver of hope for the firm, little bud that promises to blossom, affixed to a hydrangea. However, there’s no hope for Light Spinner.

A smug sense of satisfaction kicks in. Her thumb caresses a curled leaf belonging to a red dahlia until she pinches and pulls it away from the stem. There’s a lesson to be learned. Every action, every object, represents allegory.

Hemlock isn’t found here though she finds such plants to be useful beauties. She lets the cluster of lilies of the valley rest. Instead, her knuckle pets a cheerful daisy. Crooked claws caress a carved leaf which dips downward. A shame that neither oleander nor deadly nightshade graces the courtyard. Her hands have been soiled in every sense of the word. With nails that have sharpened and pointed into claws, her tarnished touch affects all. She controls these people, this court, this environment.

Manipulation over willing pawns fuel her pride and arrogance which thrust her into this recent entrapment. Greedy ambitions know no bounds. Wind rustles drapery folds and the gathering of fabric. The mask serves as a disciplined practice known as stoicism. 

Time and time again, her pupils dare to defy her. Her darling star pupil, Micah, had been a treasured surrogate son. Beloved Adora, too, never dared to cower in her presence.

The hate she sees in herself is the hate she transfers onto Catra. She targets others to oversee her own crippling insecurities. Petulant, ungrateful Catra - she saw the spark of rage and knew it to be too akin to her own curses. Adora was loyal and in her loyalty, she was malleable, so similar to Micah when the king, once a boy, had been under Shadow Weaver’s tutelage. Never swayed by fear, Glimmer took her hand. A master puppeteer fiddles with the strings to tug every player this way and that. Always, she uses people like tools.

Coming to terms with her wickedness, she ruined her adopted children, her precious prodigies. That black band across her mask resembles, loosely, a moth setting flight, the butterfly effect a constant nagging threat although the splinters sullying her mask have since healed. Nothing hides the elaborate scarification underneath. Channeling the Devil within, she doesn’t fear the darkness since she became darkness; Shadow Weaver limits her poison to the metaphorical kind.

In the aftermath, she steeples her fingers. Tents them together until the knuckles form haphazard angles, artificial depictions of humanity. Hunger nags at this game of chess, barter, and trade. Inky strands of her hair streamline over her shoulders and back, an obvious decree of her state. She yearns for more through any means attainable. With a fated futility in the grand scheme of things, she spins her old crone’s tales and makes herself seem _almost_ sympathetic, if not transparent.

Beneath the mask rid of a crystal, her serpentine tongue flicks across her teeth. Unruly locks run ragged, no longer flowing upright in an ethereal manner. In her charlatan’s robes, red sleeves hug gangly arms and accentuate her cinched, waspish waist. With pointed ears, she hears as a wolf does. The days of Mystacor leave her raw, overexposed, and simmering with a quiet anger she now keeps to herself. Wrong use of magic led her down this path. She is a horrible sorceress capable of horrible, tyrannical acts. Although she is seemingly dried up, this hag has a few tricks up her sleeves. What a wicked touch she possesses, incapable of leaving anything pure.

Devoted to studying the secrets of Mystacor, she became an enigma herself by dabbling in dark arts. Having poured over runes, relics, and symbols for decades, Micah’s magic proved a successful conduit. Surrounded by poison, she breathed in the toxins and became poison. Light Spinner was too ambitious, too greedy.

Capable of horrible acts, a living myth operates on some hidden agenda. A knowledgeable being pines after the Heart of Etheria. If she could reach equilibrium between lightness and darkness, then the entire kingdom would benefit. Power tempted and goaded her, shaped her into the nefarious thing she was today.

Did she ever abuse her power? Undoubtedly.

In a gravelly voice, she speaks to her creations. Purrs praise just as she did to Micah, to Adora, to Glimmer.

A weaver of wiles, a woman of fanciful illusions, possesses calm serenity when tending to the roses. She caresses them, thorn and all, with a sick intimacy. Had her powers returned, drawn from the rune stone, she’d set them ablaze, but now the strength comes from nurturing life - a homage to her days as Light Weaver. She clutches the prickly rose far too tightly within her grasp. Scratches her liar’s palms though she doesn’t bleed, seemingly dried up.

Gently caressing silken petals, that sinister urge manifests. Caught by the web of her own ambition, she has leeched magic from the newest queen. A hollow hunger churns inside her chest - placed where her heart ought to be. Thanks to the fruit of Micah and Angella’s arduous labors, she sets a rose bush ablaze with a mere snap of her fingers.

Without casting judgment, fire eagerly eats away at the roses and procures a sweet yet noxious smoke that writhes until it fades away. Petals wilt and evaporate into oblivion. Ashes scatter – reduced to remnants and noxious fumes. Corruptible rot eats away at her, leaves her empty save for her regrets.

Come twilight, she spies Queen Angella’s ghost drifting through the smoke from her peripheral vision, obscured by the cold, clay mask. On Etheria, the sacred and profane haunt.


End file.
